


Extraordinary

by ardenteurophile



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Pre-Slash, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-03
Updated: 2010-11-03
Packaged: 2017-10-13 01:20:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/131238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ardenteurophile/pseuds/ardenteurophile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock tries to understand his new flatmate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Extraordinary

i.

"That... was... amazing," he says in the back of an innocuous black cab, somewhere in the middle of London and on your way to a crime scene as usual. You've just finished describing how you know everything about this man without him having told you – his brother's drinking, his military career, his entire family situation – and now, instead of being defensive or angry or embarrassed, like most people are, he thinks it is amazing.

You confess yourself completely thrown.

"You think so?" you ask, allowing him some wriggle room in case he wants to change his mind. Or expand on his previous statement. Or yell at you to keep out of his business.

"Of course it was, it was extraordinary, it was quite... extraordinary," the man continues. The man. Doctor John Watson. Whom you met yesterday and now seem to be sharing a flat with, if he decides that he indeed wants to. You've never flat-shared before. You've never been called extraordinary by someone who barely knows you before, either. Or by someone who does know you, to be honest.

"That's not what people normally say," you say, turning away from him to hide your surprise.

"What do people normally say?" he asks.

"Piss off," you reply with a wry smile, and are treated to the ghost of a grin beginning to appear on the man's face as he turns to look out of the window.

You aren't sure, but you think you've just successfully made someone laugh.

There seem to be quite a lot of firsts happening today.

ii.

He surprises you again, later, in much the same way. You aren't used to surprises. They come as jolting shocks to the system, half-pleasant and exciting but also half-utterly dreadful and leaving you feeling off-kilter, not in control of the situation. You don't know how to react to being astonished. This must be how most people live their lives every day, you suppose. You don't know how they tolerate it.

You are examining a body of a woman in pink at the crime scene. Suicide, or at least that's what it looks like at first glance. It isn't difficult to draw your conclusions from her attire, her accessories, her position. You can see the narrative clearly, painted on her face, in her spread-eagled limbs; as clearly as though you'd sat down and watched a documentary on the event. It's all so obvious that it's mundane.

"That's fantastic!" John exclaims, as you come to the end of your explanation, and again you're taken aback by his reaction. Yes, you know it's fantastic, but most people tend to describe your powers of deduction as "creepy" or "freakish"; most people don't stand there staring at you intently with their eyes full of admiration. You feel an odd warmth rising up through your chest, something you aren't sure what to do with or label as.

"Do you know you do that out loud?" you ask, curiously.

"Sorry, I'll shut up," he replies, looking abashed.

"No, it's... fine."

And it absolutely is fine. Suddenly you want to do more things that are fantastic and extraordinary, more things that will make this odd little man exclaim and wonder at you. You feel reckless, as though you'd do almost anything just for a few more words of his praise.

iii.

It turns out – almost unheard of, this – that not only can you make John Watson laugh, but he can make you laugh, too. You're not used to being amused at anything other people say, although you understand the shapes and designs of humour; you can normally see the punch-line a mile off, and it's exasperating to watch everyone else take the long route. It's not the same, somehow, with John, though. Each giggle he drags out of you is sudden and startled, descending into a joyful abandonment that you don't quite understand. And you aren't used to not understanding.

It is frustrating, how little you can fathom about John Watson. Oh, you know all the concrete details about his life; they're written all over him, in bold lettering, font size 26, on A3 paper. But you don't understand what he is, or how he feels, or how he manages still – a month after you've moved in together – to constantly surprise you. And you don't normally bother with wondering how people feel – it's enough to know what they've done, are doing and are going to do – but somehow it's driving you more than a little frantic this time to not know.

You catch him watching you as you move around the flat, with an odd smile on his face, miles away and obviously thinking about something that you aren't privy to.

You note the look of wild joy in his eyes that you glimpse occasionally as you are dashing through the streets of London together, hot on the tail of this week's evil mastermind.

You refresh his blog repeatedly when you aren't with him, hoping to glean some insight; the entries are prosaic and matter of fact, and though he mentions you, you're not much the wiser for having read them.

You don't know what any of these things mean.

That strange feeling of warmth in your chest still hasn't gone away when you look at him.

iv.

Feelings exist, you muse. Even you have them, though they aren't always immediately identifiable, or appropriate to the situation once identified - apparently. But feelings are facts, and they happen. And you are the master of facts and happenings, and if you want to, you can solve this mystery of feeling.

And then you can work out what John is, and how, and why; crack this problem so that you can move on and stop wasting away all of your spare time wondering what it all means. What that slightly furrowed brow means. What his eyes on you as you play the violin means. What his tendency to drop everything and come running whenever you text means.

v.

You manage to get your hands on his therapist's notes. It isn't very difficult; you call in a few favours and, as with everything, you get what you want. People go to therapists to talk about their feelings – as you well know from your own enforced stint in therapy in your teenage years – so you've decided this is as good a place to start as any.

You read the notes whilst sitting in John's room, to try and get more of a sense of him. His scent is still lingering in the air, on the bedclothes, although he's been out for a few hours now; a warm and slightly spicy smell, aftershave mixed with coffee.

As with every other time you've been in here – obviously you've already been through John's possessions – the room is sparse, containing little sign of the man who lives here. It's something most ex-military have in common, of course, and for a moment you wonder what John's bedroom was like as a teenager and a young man, before he went off to Afghanistan, when your character was still something displayed on walls and shelves instead of in actions.

When John bursts in half an hour later, you are still engrossed in his notes, reading his every word and confession every since he was invalided from the army. You're so involved that you don't even look up, completely failing to take in the aghast look on John's face as he notices what's in your hands.

"It says here that you refused to eat for an entire week when you got back from Afghanistan. Why would you do that?"

"What are you doing, Sherlock," John says, his voice oddly flat and cold, though you don't register it at the time.

"Ah, no, I see, it says here – you said you felt guilty that you'd survived. But that doesn't make any sense-"

"What are you doing," he repeats, and this time you look up, and he's shaking with - anger, you think, shocked, and there's a hard, blazing look in his eyes.

You get to your feet as though scalded, fumbling with the folder in your hands. There's a cold, trickling realisation that perhaps there is something incorrect about what you've done, and you watch John's face intently for news of your fate, for an explanation.

"You have no right," he snaps, taking a step forward and snatching the file out of your fingers, "No right whatsoever, Sherlock. What the hell do you think you are doing?"

You watch his anger helplessly, unsure how to fix whatever has just gone wrong.

"I was trying to understand-" you begin, gesturing towards him. He shakes his head violently, his mouth a long straight line, his eyes dark and unreadable.

You want to explain to him, to shout it, to make him realise: I need to know you, I need to understand, to find out what goes on inside your head, to crack your code, to solve this puzzle, to pull apart each strand of this problem and put it back together again until I can make sense of it, to take the fascinating and the unknowable and shape it into something logical and mundane so that I know what to do with it, so that I can stop thinking and obsessing and just file it away inside my head with everything else, Doctor John Watson, Case Closed.

You don't say anything.

He gives you a last, furious look – but something else in there too, you realise, something unidentifiable – and strides out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

"I was trying to understand," you call after him, brokenly. There's no reply other than the fading of his footsteps as he runs down the stairs and out of the house.

vi.

Work is concrete, real. Facts can be worked out and laid out and pinned down. You concentrate on your latest case after John has stormed out, seeing no reason to fritter away the time uselessly worrying about him. There are other things to be done, more important things.

At least, that's what you tell yourself.

In reality, you're quite aware of how fast your heart is beating – 92 bpm at rest, far too quickly – and of the slow, prickling sweat covering your body. You can't help going back to your laptop every 10 minutes and pulling up John's blog, just in the vain hope that he'll have posted a new entry; even if it's something angry and awful, you wouldn't mind, just so you know what's happening.

Hands shaking, you light one of your heavily-rationed cigarettes, hoping Mrs Hudson will let you get away with just this one.

Why had John been so upset? And it wasn't just anger, you're sure; that odd spark behind his eyes that you saw just before he left was something more than that: betrayal, or disappointment perhaps. The thought of each makes your stomach clench unhappily. That strange, warm, floating feeling that you normally get when you think about John has gone, disappearing as quickly as it arrived, and you think that you probably miss it.

Pining, you think suddenly, that's what I'm doing. Pining for John Watson.

The thought seems utterly alien. It lacks the elegance or simplicity of your normal conclusions, so you leave it alone.

Instead, you call for takeaway, mooch around the flat for hours trying to distract your brain with mind-numbing television. It doesn't help much, other than convincing you that most of the people on the planet are indistinct, predictable idiots, especially compared to John. Ridiculous, impossible John.

In the small hours of the morning you end up texting him, over and over again, to no avail; messages of increasing desperation and confusion, asking why, and what have you done, and can he explain, and God but you just want to see him and that in itself doesn't make any sense.

John, I don't understand, you type out, I am losing all rationality.

I just want you to come back.

I need to solve this.

I need you.

Please.

Eventually you drift into a restless sleep, hand clutched around your phone, fully-dressed and uncomfortable half-on and half-off the sofa.

vii.

It is still early when John crashes back in through the front door. You lurch out of a light and disturbed sleep at the sound, calculating it to be around 7:40 judging by the quality of the light at this time of year.

He looks like he hasn't really slept. Bags under his eyes, yesterday's clothes all crumpled to him, his hair slightly bedraggled. You leap out of your chair, standing up to face him.

"You haven't slept," you said, regarding him warily. Desperately happy to see him. Terrified of what that means.

"It's difficult," he says, "When your phone keeps beeping every few minutes."

"You didn't reply."

"I didn't reply. I was thinking."

You watch him, waiting for him to expand on his thoughts. He doesn't.

"Are you going to tell me what you were thinking about, or do you want some time alone with the skull?" you say, a little of your wit returning. He smiles despite himself, then looks up at you, suddenly intense.

"Sherlock, we need to have a talk about...boundaries."

"Boundaries..." you repeat, slowly.

"You're aware of the concept, I'm sure," he says, with a slightly twisted grin.

You nod. You understand the theory, at least.

John takes a deep breath.

"My confidential files, Sherlock, are my confidential files. You do not use underhand methods to access them in the future."

You nod, wincing slightly.

"My things, are my things. That is, everything in my bedroom. Anything I leave lying around in the living room is fair game."

You nod.

"And finally, Sherlock. My thoughts, are my thoughts. You can't crack them open and you can't just solve them like they're a rubix cube. It isn't like that."

Hanging your head like a chastised child, you nod again, dumbly.

"But I thought we were.... friends?" you venture, quietly, "And friends...share things, don't they?"

You aren't sure. You've never really had one before.

John smiles again, looking a little exasperated.

"They share, Sherlock, they don't take. If you want to see my things, just ask me. If you want to know my thoughts, just ask me. I'll try to be as honest as I can."

You stare at him, marvelling slightly at the idea of just being able to ask for answers rather than gather clues and draw deductions. You don't know where to start: with the fact that he'll travel halfway across London if you just text him saying you're bored, with the way that he's memorised exactly when and how you like your tea, with the fact that he's long stopped objecting whenever anyone refers to him as your "date"? You have so many questions.

"So, if I can bear in mind these boundaries," you say, finally, "Then we're still...what. Friends?"

John holds your gaze, tilting his head a little to the side.

"Yes. Absolutely."

You smile suddenly, delightedly, in the way that you've discovered you only really ever do around John Watson.

"Although as for being friends..." he continues, watching you thoughtfully, "I've always thought that there were certain boundaries that were made to be pushed."

You feel your eyes widen as you process the meaning of his words, reliving at the same time the last weeks of your strange obsession and preoccupation with the man that is currently stood in front of you. Yes, that makes perfect sense, you think. Of course. You don't know why you didn't see it before.

"Extraordinary," you say, shaking your head, "Quite extraordinary".

And, surprised once more by John Watson, you throw back your head and laugh.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Sherlock is the property of the BBC, Mark Gatiss & Steven Moffat. Sherlock Holmes is public domain. My thanks to Arthur Conan Doyle.


End file.
